Some weeks ago I was asked to design a LP cover for a colleagues friends birthday. And oh, how i loved it getting deep into the demanded Metal style and lingo – with all its darkness as well as the flashing neon elements that you truly just have to love about a good Metal cover artwork. So here is my hail to Iron Maiden and all the other bands with the crazy hairdoes and hard guitar rythms.

It’s been some time since I made new illustrations. So I was quite happy, having a good reason to pick that up again, when a colleague of mine asked me to design invitations for her late summer party. And that’s how it turned out to be:

Here is my second attempt in getting a little bit fitter at Adobe Photoshop CS6 3D possibilities. This is not really an original design, as I followed this very good tutorial to master this look. Also the quote is not mine, but I hold it very dearly, since David Petermann, Executive Creative Director at Wunderman PXP, stated this line to have been the most important question when judging the online advertising entries at Cannes. The expression “leiwand”, some of the most notorious Viennese dialect words, meaning “cool”, “easygoing” or “brilliant”. And I only can very much agree with this quote and pin this sentence next to my computer.

I’m still playing around with the possibilities of colorizing old black and white photographs. Here are two more of my latest attempts: The first one is showing my great-grandfather and his family, the second one two of his sons – one being my grandfather as a baby.

Another attempt in colorizing old pictures. This time something more personal as this is a picture of my great-great-grandparents with their sons and daughter, somewhat around 1900 in the Czech Republic. It’s one of the oldest photographs our family possesses and I always was especially fascinated by it. I don’t know this people at all, and yet I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for them. People who lived over a century ago in another country. Family.

Hi!
My name is Manuela Heidenreich but I'm Mardou around the web sometimes. I live in Vienna, work as a multimedia designer and try to be an illustrator in my spare time. This blog is about everything that fascinates me - no more, no less.